This is a blog about the board games my son Tyler and I play, and humorous stories when applicable. We will both give reviews from our perspectives. Spoiler alert: I mostly lose, no matter what the game is.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Review - Dungeon Scroll - Game Salute

It's not often that you have a game go from an app to a physical game but that's what happen with dungeon scroll. Tyler is not a word game kids but liked the them so we gave it a try.

A dangerous, perplexing word game and dungeon delve where only those with the quickest wit and largest vocabulary survive. As sorcerers of the mystical art of Word Weaving, you and several other treasure hunters will descend into the Tomb of the Forgotten Consonant and quest for the Syllabus of the Lost Syllable. When the journey is complete, only the most heroic word smith will walk away with the win.

Dungeon Scroll is a word game where players spell words (cast spells) to meet specific word challenges (dungeon encounters)to score points (gain gold).A layered dungeon of 9 cards is formed by randomly selecting cards from the Entrance (x1), 1st Floor (x3), 2nd Floor(x3), Dungeon Boss(x1) and Final Room (x1) dungeon cards and combining them into a face down stack. Each turn the top card will be flipped (starting with the Entrance) and players will face the specific encounter on the card. Thematically it could be anything from a Skeleton or Pit Trap to a Travelling Merchant.Players each have a hand of letter cards from which they will spell words with different points values (letters are worth varying points and some cards provide multiplication bonuses). If the encounter is a "combat" encounter, typically the player that can play the highest point word will win the encounter and claim the highest gold reward on the dungeon card, with other players claiming the second and third reward - however that is not always true as each dungeon challenge provides twists and turns; to the sorts of words that can be played. Other "Special" encounters might allow such actions as players to sell their letter cards for gold.The player with the most gold at the end of the game wins.

Make words, defeat enemies, claim victory.

Tyler started out the first 2 battles spelling the, which he thought was hilarious. He wins a couple battles and I win a couple. We avoid the traps the dungeon has set for us by spelling long enough words and as we get deeper into the game he is up 25-26. Now we are at the boss battle and he just narrowly edges me out and takes a 35-30 lead. We go head to head in the last battle but there is no way for me to make it back into the game and Tyler wins.

Dad:

"I really like the merchant card. It adds a unique aspect to the game if it comes up."

Tyler:

"The great old one is...well...pretty great."

Dad:

"This game really surprised me. Having only really played unspeakable words as far as non scrabbleish games go i really enjoyed this. I like that the cards can be different with different rules each round and different effects on what and how you can play cards. Keeper for sure."

3/5

Tyler:"I did not think i would like a game that involved spelling, but i really like this one. The game mechanic is one that i have not seen before. The only thing i did not like is that the last battle card is the same every time."